one chinchilla two, three chinchillas four

Most of y'all who know us know that we have a little bit of a chinchilla obsession. Over the last 3 and a half years of marriage we seem to be continually collecting these little creatures. 

I quite frequently find my self explaining to every person that I meet, about how on earth I ended up with four chinchillas. 

Pope, Cardinal, Bishop and Archie are our current fluffy butts that we have. On occasion we do pick up a few to hold for a local rescue here in Arizona. But four is our limit. 

Originally we had one. Pope the chinchilla. He had been my husband's family pet for a number of years. When we got hitched, we decided to pack up poor Pope from New Hampshire and fly him alllll the way out to Idaho to live with us.

 After a few months of living with us, I decided that he was lonely. Where he originally had been staying he had people constantly at his cage talking to him. Pope absolutely loves any and all attention.

We then set up a play date with some other local chinchilla owners. One thing led to another and we'll then there was two.

 Originally he was just going to stay the night...

Cardinal is what we call our derpy chin. You will frequently find him wide eyed in strange positions through out the cage. Once out he will clime to the absolute highest point he can possibly get to and stare at you until you chase him down. 

But, If there is one thing that I could say about Cardinal, it's that he absolutely adores Pope. From day one he has just wanted to snuggle and love up on Pope. The best part about it...Pope hates cuddling. I have sat and watched these two on so many occasions, it's absolutely hilarious. 

We have tubes in the cage for them to play and lay on and often we find Cardinal smooshed in with Pope on the same tube. Pope will knack and knack at him, occasionally Cardinal will move but majority of the time Pope will give up and accept it.

Because our first bonding of chinchillas had been so successful we frequently joked about getting another chinchilla for Cardinal to actually be able to snuggle with.

A few days after thanksgiving I made the mistake of walking into a petstore. Bishop the chinchilla was sitting very grumply and lonely in his plastic cage. I immediately knew I wanted him. And after convincing husband that this would be the best Christmas gift we walked out the door with our third chinchilla.

Bishop the chinchilla is a different kind of chinchilla. Chinchillas are animals of prey, scared and frightened little creatures. Bishop is none of these. He is aggressive, angry and has zero fears. 

Unfortunately he was and is unable to bond with other chinchillas. He will live by himself for the rest of his life. 

Over the year of owning him we have seen his temperment change and grow trusting of us. We hope to see him continually grow to become a better well behaved chinchilla. 

Back in  2014 husband was offered an incredible job, so we packed up our house and our Chinchillas and drove down to Arizona. It was quite an adventure to have three chinchillas stuffed in our car on a 14 hour drive. 

Shortly after moving to Arizona I met a wonderful woman here, who runs a rescue for chinchillas in the valley. One night she was unable to pick up a rescue chinchilla, she called me to see if we were able to. The chinchilla that we received had been so badly mauled that he had to receive an emergency amputation on his back leg. 

At this point in time we added our fourth and final chinchilla to our family. 

Archie the chinchilla is our youngest chinchilla of the four, and he is completely heart melting. He is very much a baby and has the sweetest temperament. He loves to be held and he loves to be loved. 

Due to his amputation he is unable to bond with Pope and Cardinal. They enjoy picking on him. 

Archie has been such a wonderful connection in our family and we are so grateful to have him brought into our lives.

Sunday Dinner

A recent goal that I have set for me and Ryan is to have a home cook meal 6 days out of the week. I thought that it would be a wonderful idea to share some of my yummy recipes that I make. Sundays are usually our biggest meals and they would be perfect days to set goals to share with yall at least one meal, once a week. So I hope yall enjoy...this one is a pintrest one that I made to work for me and my husband. To say that its a husband favorite would not describe the love my husband has for this meal. Its in one of his top tens.

Beef & Broccoli

First things first I make a marinate for the meat and let it sit for at least an hour (some times its several hours). I put baking soda, sugar, cornstarch, water, soy sauce, and some veggie oil in a bowl and whisk away. Then I cut up my steak into yummy bite size pieces and throw it in the bowl. I then let it sit for at least an hour but more is most certainly preferred. 

After we marinate the beef and we are ready to eat, I chop up some broccoli (you can use thawed frozen, but fresh is the best in my opinion). I then heat up olive oil on the skillet, after its nice and hot I throw the broccoli and cook for about 3 min. A warning, dont walk away, you dont want to burn them! 

Once the broccoli is done just transfer it to another plate and in the same skillet toss the meat in. While the meat is cooking I usually make the sauce. In this sauce I put some soy sauce, brown sugar, garlic, and flour and whisk. 

After your meat is nice and brown I add some of the sauce and let simmer for about 3 min. Once the meat fully done cooking I add the broccoli. Here I let it cook on low for about 2 min and dump the rest of the sauce. 

Careful to not let it cook for to long, dont want the broccoli to get mushy. But now is the best part, serve it with some yummy white rice (this night I was craving potatoes so there are some mash potatoes)  And Voila!!! 

Please leave a comment or let me know how you enjoyed it, if you choose to make it!! 

Monsoon season in the desert

I am the worst...at journal-ing, blogging...really anything that has to do with documenting my life.

But lately I have been having this strong desire, a strong push to do it, to write something. And I want to full fill that. I want to set a goal to update just for my self on here twice a week...

On a other note...its been hot and rainy (really its only rained two days out of the month) but the rain here is crazy. It rains a whole bunch in just a few hours and then floods everything. We had a local park behind our house fill up so much that we had people out riding their jet skies on it. It was pretty cool.

So far we still love Arizona. Ryan and I are still shocked at how unbelievably hot it is and we are almost to October. Not sure how this winter is going to be (I am sure very dramatically different from Idaho). We are supposed to have a week in the 80's next week, we are so excited because after months of 115, 80 degrees sounds heavenly.

Ryan received his diploma in the mail the other day, that makes him an official grad with an official job! I truly cannot believe that we are graduates, actual grown ups, expected to do grown up things. Often we talk about how weird that is, it feels like just yesterday we were just meeting and worrying about making straight A's and impressing our teachers. And now, we have four chinchillas, living in the desert, making lots of decisions.

Believe it or not, we are certainly missing Idaho. Something I honestly never thought I would miss. There are times where we talk about maybe going back there...to live. But who knows where we will be. Ryan's job looks like it will keep us here for the next five years at least. After that, who knows.

Over all though its been wonderful. We have enjoyed the past few months here and look forward to what the future brings.